A set of ideas for balancing

[sgtkwol]

I posted a topic in general awhile ago, about balancing classes.  I started plotting some ideas on how to balance groups, and they just kept flowing.  Keep in mind, this is all "napkin" math or no math at all and could/should be tweaked.

All gear has potential to affect stats dramatically, for the better if they are matched up correctly.  Should be percentage based, so that you are not empowered almost completely through your gear, at first.  All percentages will be added together before being applied.  Gear will offer higher highs and lower lows when it is more rare.  Weapons will complement certain types of gear.  Gear that you buy from vendors would provide up to 10% overall and earlier quests would provide access to be a little above that through crafting, rewards, etc.  As quests become harder, better rewards, just like things are like, now.  This would allow us to create our own "classes" of a traditional RPG, but allow the infinite possiblities of Planeshift.


light--intent--massive spell damage at the cost of defense, not as affective at physical combat

+ways of magic
+ mental stats
+gear can increase skills in any of the 6 ways of magic with spillover into the related ways at 1/4 ratio and taking away from the opposite way at 1/4 (ie raising crystal by 10% would raise blue and azure by 2.5% and lower dark by 2.5%)
-takes the most damage and lowers physical weapon skills by 1/2 (raising crystal by 10% would lower all physical weapon skills by 5%)
-cannot use a shield
-ranged physical combat accuracy drops

Medium armor would be for spellcasters and melee and would offer different rewards to each.

medium-caster--intent--deals good spell power, quick melee damage, better survivability, decreases offensive spell range for more power

+increases magic and mental stats same as cloth but generally at 90-95% the rate for similar rewards
+takes 1/2 as much damage as cloth
+offers better buffs and removal of debuffs
+decrease weapon skills by 1/4 instead of 1/2
-does not offer major upgrades in most areas of magic
-may decrease the opposite color than the color it increases(1:2 ratio)
-spillover rate is much lower 1/8

medium-physical--intent--massive physical damage, better survivability

+speed on some weapon classes(light and ranged) increases
+increase physical stats
+takes 1/2 as much damage as cloth
+increase range accuracy at max range
-some weapon classes(heavy weapons) skill level reduced by half

heavy--take as little damage as possible

+takes 1/4 damage as cloth from similar sources
+increased shield skill
+increase damage from some weapon classes(heavy)
-decreases effectiveness of all spells cast
-higher defense gear will further slow a weapon and increase damage slightly, this produces less damage overall

Gear changes cannot be made in combat, this way you can't change to healing gear and heal yourself to continue fighting, the switch back to take the hard hits.

Threat is determined by average damage per last 5 hits.  Fast weapons hit more often for less and produce less threat and heavier weapons hit harder and
produce 25% more threat at similar levels.  Ranged and magic produce 25% less threat than similarly geared melee.

Full plate sets should deal about 85-90% the damage of a leather wearer, when used for melee.
Tanking should deal 60-70% of that damage.

Let me know what you think...

[zanzibar]

Another option is to have damage reduction done according to a set value rather than a proportional one.  For instance, all damage reduced by 50.  So any damage done to you equal or less than 50 would do no damage at all.  And if someone does 5000 damage to you, the armor will do practically nothing.

If the damage is proportional, then a hit of 5 damage will still harm you, even though at least that much damage would be taken away from a more powerful hit.  At an extreme, if the armor blocks 1/4 of the damage, then it somehow manages to block 250,000 damage if you're dealt a 1,000,000 damage hit.

[zinder]

I ahve always liked systems, where armour used both absolute and proportional reduction. First is the absolute reduction, any hit that strong will be absorbed fully by the armour. Any damage that is left over after that, is reduced by a percentage. An example a 10/40 plate armour takes 100 damage. The first 10 damage will be absorbed in the structure and the left over 90 will be reduced by 40% to an effective of 54 damage.
On the play side anything less than 11 damage will only make the plate ring as the hit will be distributed over the surface and the force is absorbed by the padding, represented by the absolute reduction. Only if a hit does at least 11 damage, the armour is overcome and dented or penetrated, which reduces the strength by slowing down the weapon, represented by the percentile reduction.

[sgtkwol]

Like I said, "napkin math".  It , should be tweaked to fit the settings, I just wanted to get a general idea out there that I have for balancing.  Give me a reason for wearing cloth, other than price.  Force me to rely on a healer if I'm wearing plate.  Force me to rely on someone to absorb the damage if I'm dealing damage.  The game may have a classless system, which is the reason why it will rock, but the basic roles of tank, healer, and damage dealer will always be around.  My ideas take the skill enhancements that are in game, and gives them a more vital role.  With the positives to all gear, there will be negatives; this way, no one is the jack of all trades, but relies on teammembers to complete difficult tasks in a more meaningful way.

[Ralleyon]

Your ideas are quite interesting. Instead of the tweaking the napkin math as you call it, perhaps you could chat with a few folks from the game Rules department and see what they're doing and how they're testing things. Maybe even apply to it. If you are more technically inclined and can compile the server, you can even test your ideas and see how they work.